There was a time in the mid-'90s when it seemed that Madonna was finally acting her age: with the 1994 release of "I'll Remember" and the subsequent greatest-ballads collection Something To Remember, it seemed as if the Material Girl was resigned to a lifetime of mature songcraft and age-appropriate jams that would serve her well into her 50s and beyond. Thankfully, that brief period of misdirection was a poor prognosticator. The subsequent two decades of Madonna have been chock full of hard-dance jams and a perverse desire to piss off her detractors while staying current with what the kids are into. On this, her 13th long-player, her need to shock and her desire to dance find themselves at loggerheads — some of Madonna's most beautiful bliss-croonings butt up against some of the most grotesque works in her canon. Exhibit A: you may expect Madonna to exclaim "I'm a bad girl anyway," as she does in album opener "Girl Gone Wild," but you don't expect her repeated screams of "Die bitch!" over a dubstep bassdrop in the ugly and perverse "Gang Bang." The in-your-face kicks of that song, and of "I Don't Give A," and especially "Beautiful Killer" (relegated to the Deluxe Edition) feel all the more recklessly aggro when juxtaposed with poppy confections like "I'm Addicted," "Turn Up the Radio," and the Bacharach-bounce of "I'm a Sinner." And though those three won't be replacing "Borderline" or "Into the Groove" on karaoke playlists anytime soon, they are undeniably topnotch bubbly popcraft. "Every record sounds the same/You've got to step into my world," she chides amidst the giddily self-referential "Give Me All Your Luvin,' " laying out the case for mixing the profane and the sacred in a desperate bid for cultural relevance. Luckily for fans of music and controversy alike, Madonna's compulsions reap musical dividends as she continues to bang into a dance-tastic G-spot, and the results are part sour, part sweet.

Alabama Shakes | Boys & Girls In 2012, every other mainstream female pop singer is trying her hand at honest-to-God soul, shooting stylistically for Aretha Franklin (by way of Adele's 21) but usually winding up closer to early-Nelly Furtado.

The Soundtrack of Our Lives | Throw It To the Universe While many Britpop fans spent the late 90s onward hoping with that Oasis would pull something out of the cabinet that came close to Definitely Maybe or (What's the Story) Morning Glory?, they should've been expanding their sonic range farther west to Sweden, where the Soundtrack of Our Lives have been rolling out some of the genre's finest compositions.

Various Artists | Casual Victim Pile: Austin 2010 The notion that regional musical flavors exist independently in American cities is quickly becoming an archaic truism, seeing as how the world really is a stage these days, at least in the digital sense.

Avi Buffalo | Avi Buffalo Look, I get it: the last thing we need right now is yet another band who can be described as “sun-baked,” “reverb-soaked,” or even just “psychedelic.” But Avi Buffalo (I know! An animal name to boot!) are worth your attention for a few reasons.

KT Tunstall | Tiger Suit The KT Tunstall of Tiger Suit is tougher, louder, and more electronically endowed than the KT Tunstall of its poppy predecessor, 2007's Drastic Fantastic , and Eye to the Telescope three years before that.

The Sounds | Something To Die For The recent news that British electronic act Faithless have called it a day no doubt left dejected ravers reaching for extra MDMA to stave off the tears.

THE STROKES | COMEDOWN MACHINE | March 18, 2013 The Strokes burst out in a post-9/11 musical world with a sound that was compact and airtight, melodies coiled frictionlessly in beats and fuzzed vocals.

GLISS | LANGSOM DANS | February 01, 2013 If rock and roll is three chords and the truth, then the mutant genre offspring shoegaze can be summed up as one chord, three fuzzboxes, and a sullen, muttered bleat.